A few years ago, we took note of the online incarnations of Dante’s Inferno, among them Todd King’s “virtual tour of hell,” a Flash project that allows you to explore the Dark Wood and the nine circles of hell, with Virgil and Dante as your guides. Now Electronic Arts has remade the poem as a “quest” video game, set to be released February 9, in which the game player takes on the role of Dante as a medieval warrior, venturing into hell to rescue Beatrice, wielding “Death’s soul-reaping scythe” and a magical cross given to him by Beatrice. We feel the same way about this game as we did about the CGI-filled film of Beowulf a few years ago: The real art is in the words of the poem. At least the Web site for this new version of the Inferno includes a portion of the poem itself, in Longfellow’s translation—and the game producers, having “” have arranged for publication of the classic poem in a new English edition to accompany the game.

Related articles
“Dante & the Response Poem,” David Shapiro and Frank Lima create another kind of collaboration
Terza rima, the rhyme-linked 3-line stanza form originated by Dante
More Medieval poets

We’re happy to report that our Forum poets put forward a good number of excellent poems during the past month to be considered for entry in the InterBoard Poetry Competition—enough that Poetry Guide Margy Snyder faced some difficult choices in winnowing down our entries to the limit of three. These three poems went to the IBPC editors for February:

• “Drying in the Rain” by Theo Vogdanis (boyatthewindow), a poem that paints in delicate watercolors the melancholy residue of a memory that has ostensibly “washed away.8221;
• “Virgin” by Tim J. Brennan (68degrees), a memory beautifully compressed into just a few short lines and sparkling images, so that it is not crushed but shines.
• “Are You Dead?” by T. Obatala (trkyounger), a strong example of this poet’s myth-making that prompted this response from one reader: “knocked out completely senseless by a spectacularly good punch of a poem.”

We will be back to report when the judges have selected the winning poems. In the meantime, we’ve posted a page of background information on the current IBPC judges, Dorianne Laux and Joseph Millar, for those of you who’d like to explore their poetic predilections, and we urge the Forum poets to keep the nominations coming in for next month. To nominate a poem you’ve seen anywhere on the Poetry Forum, post it in the InterBoard Poetry Competition folder and be sure to address your post to the poet whose work you are nominating, so that the poet will be notified and can post the required permission and information before we select next month’s three entries.

More on the IBPC:
General information
Requirements for IBPC nominees
Anthology of the monthly IBPC winning poems
Archive of poems entered in the IBPC from our Poetry Forum Background information, reading and book-buying links for January-March 2010 IBPC judges Dorianne Laux and Joseph Millar

We haven’t seen it yet, but we’re looking forward to the new biopic Howl, which bills itself as “a genre-expanding feature-length exploration of the courtroom drama of the obscenity trial over Allen Ginsberg’s poem, as well as an animated re-imagining of the poem.” The film opened the Sundance Festival last week and the reviews are intriguing:

• Betsy Sharkey of The Los Angeles Times calls it “arty and difficult, and exactly right for the Sundance Film Festival.”
• The headline on Anna Bloom’s New York Times blog interview with the filmmakers says “Allen Ginsberg and His Times Are Brought to Life.”
• In his Salon.com review, “A ‘Howl’ of rage and pleasure,” Andrew O’Hehir proclaims James Franco’s performance as Ginsberg “amazing” and describes the film’s animated illustration of the poem over Franco’s reading, wondering whether the poem needs visual images in the end.

Is anyone reading this from Sundance? If you’ve seen the film, care to comment?

More films about poets and poetry

More on Allen Ginsberg:
Allen Ginsberg, Beat American Buddha Bard, by Bob Holman
Our profile of Ginsberg
The Bard His Own Self: Allen Ginsberg says “That’s all Goodnight”
Encounters with Allen Ginsberg, by Bart Plantenga

On Ginsberg’s poetry:
Allen Ginsberg’s American Sentences, an introduction to his variation on haiku
Chorus of Poets Gather for “Howl” Celebration: the 50th anniversary, an account by Teresa Conboy
You can read the poem in print or listen to it on the Internet—but you won't hear it on the radio—“Howl” (October 2007)
Hear Ginsberg’s first “Howl”—1956 recording discovered at Reed College (February 2008)
Ginsberg Howls on Indiefeed (Feburary 2009)
Howl (noun). Howl (verb). Howl, the poem heard round the world (April 2009)

In the first month of their term as judges for the InterBoard Poetry Competition, Dorianne Laux and Joseph Millar selected these winning poems:

• In first place, “Eureka Springs” by Jude Goodwin, “a glorious re-envisioning of the famous two-million pound mortar and steel statue of Jesus of the Ozarks.8221;
• In second place, “Snow” by Judy Swann, “a small, quiet poem that becomes larger and larger as it progresses.”
• In third place, “Tiger, Tiger” by Mitchell Geller, “a clever, deft, mini tour de force” commenting on the recent public travails of Tiger Woods in a parody of William Blake’s iconic poem.
• Laux and Millar also made honorable mention without comment of three more poems: “Wig” by Michael Harty, “Takazumi” by Bren Lyons, and “Post Apocalypse in Polo Park” by Don Schaeffer.

(You will remember that our Forum did not have any entries in this month’s competition—but as the February competition approaches, the Forum poets are busy nominating and polishing poems for entry. We will be back to report when our three February entries have been chosen.)

More on the IBPC:
General information
Requirements for IBPC nominees
Anthology of the monthly IBPC winning poems
Archive of poems entered in the IBPC from our Poetry Forum Background information, reading and book-buying links for January-March 2010 IBPC judges Dorianne Laux and Joseph Millar